Some things never change. Another President Bush was ambushed with extended unemployment benefits shortly before another presidential campaign. Some data in this oldie are dated (though not wildly different from today), but the arguments seem worth another look:
Read the rest of this post →The Cure for Unemployment
Alan Reynolds
The Wall Street Journal , October 3, 1991
Democratic Congressmen hope to make George Bush look like a hard-hearted villain because of his reluctance to spend an extra $6 billion to extend unemployment benefits beyond the usual six months. Yet the current job situation is scarcely an emergency. Unemployment was higher than it is today in all but two of the dozen years from 1975 through 1986. Today, the average spell of unemployment — 14 weeks — is still lower than it was even as recently as 1987. Half of the unemployed find new jobs in fewer than seven weeks.
The congressional push to extend unemployment benefits aims to help a relatively elite minority of the unemployed. Last year, only 39% of the unemployed collected any benefits at all. This was largely because about half of those unemployed did not lose their jobs. They either quit their jobs, were reentering the labor force after a prolonged absence or were young people who had not held jobs before. Another reason many unemployed do not qualify for benefits is that they already have another job lined up, and are just taking some extra time off between employers. Or, they find a new job within three weeks — the waiting period to qualify. And, of course, unemployed illegal immigrants are less than eager to register with government agencies.
Those who are not eligible for unemployment benefits rarely take six months or more to find a job. Conversely, those unemployed for long periods are usually among those who do receive benefits, and often receive supplemental union benefits that can approximate their usual after-tax wages (particularly with some casual labor “off the books”). Moreover, cyclical layoffs account for most of the long-term unemployed, who, because of their seniority, have good reason to wait to be recalled.